Vehicles, such as automobiles, light-duty trucks, and heavy-duty trucks, play an important role in the lives of many people. To keep vehicles operational, some of those people rely on vehicle technicians to diagnose and repair their vehicle.
Vehicle technicians use a variety of tools in order to diagnose and/or repair vehicles. Those tools may include common hand tools, such as wrenches, hammers, pliers, screwdrivers and socket sets, or more vehicle-specific tools, such as cylinder hones, piston ring compressors, and vehicle brake tools. The tools used by vehicle technicians may also include electronic tools such as a digital voltage-ohm meter (DVOM) or a vehicle scan tool that communicates with an electronic control unit (ECU) within a vehicle.
Vehicle technicians may work at various locations of a vehicle in order to diagnose and/or repair the vehicle. For example, while working on an automobile having a passenger compartment and an under-hood area containing an internal combustion engine, a vehicle technician may desire to work at the under-hood area and at the passenger compartment. For example, the vehicle technician may desire to use a DVOM to make a voltage measurement at the under-hood area while the technician operates user controls within the passenger compartment so as to re-create a vehicle performance complaint (e.g., a cylinder misfire).
The vehicle scan tool and/or DVOM can be linked via a wireless connection to a controller or display device. The wireless connection can be established using one or more wireless communication protocols, such as the Bluetooth protocol, IEEE 802.11 (“WiFi”), or IEEE 802.16 (“WiMax”).
An initialization procedure for wireless connections can be required prior to establishment of the wireless connection, in accordance with a given wireless communication protocol. One such initialization process is the Bluetooth protocol's “pairing” process for authenticating wireless communications. During the pairing process, two Bluetooth devices exchange identification information over the air to generate and store a “common link key.” The two Bluetooth devices can then retrieve and use the stored common link key to communicate over the wireless connection with an authenticated, specific device in the future.